Page 47 of Dragon Fight

“Typical Soren, thinking about ancient history,” Flynn said with a smirk. His smile faded as he nodded at the two other men, whose conversation faltered when they noticed they were the focus of our attention. “But I think Pippin is focussed on something much more recent.”

I kissed Soren gently before pulling away so I could approach the other two, but the way his hands released me reluctantly didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. I walked closer to where Draven and the man I called my husband stood, and I felt like I was looking at them for the first time. What I had assumed was a relationship based on familiarity, and from both of them having rank in the corps, appeared quite differently to me now.

But I needed to know exactly what it was rather than being bombarded by uncertainty and suspicion every time I saw them together.

Brom nodded. He’d anticipated this. In fact, he’d promised me that he would answer all of my questions. He took a step away from Draven but that made the prince frown.

“Perhaps we should answer Pippin’s questions together?” Draven addressing Brom, not me. I put my hand on Brom’s arm, feeling the thick muscle there that flexed automatically, as his hand covered mine.

“I need to talk to my husband,” I said, carefully enunciating Brom’s position, the one Draven’s family had forced Brom to take. “Alone.”

Draven took a step back, his skin going as pale as milk, but that didn’t ease the tension in his jaw. His eyes widened and burned bright, phosphorescent blue, then he turned to Darkspire.

“Let’s go, lad,” he told his dragon. Darkspire rumbled in response. “We’ll never be welcome here, and there’s that meadow off on the plateau where you like to sun yourself. There’s usually some mountain goats to snack on as well.”

The dragon let out a grumble then lumbered forward, sweeping through the massive room and out through the opening onto the balcony. Draven threw himself into his dragon’s saddle and they took off, launching up into the air. Brom stepped forward to watch them go for a moment before turning to me.

“I said I’d answer any of your questions and I meant it,” he replied. “Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

“Let's start with you and Ada and Draven,” I replied. “And don’t try and tell me that was just a youthful fling. When you took me as your wife, I assumed you were free to do so. Were you?”

30

Brom looked back into the room and, seeing that we still had an audience, he flicked the long sweeping curtains across so it created the illusion that the two of us were alone. He reached out for my hand to escort me over to a bench that ran the length the balcony along the wall. But I found myself unable to do anything other than stare: at him, at his gesture, at everything. He let out a frustrated little huff of breath then shrugged his shoulders and went to sit on the bench, looking at me to see what I would do. I sat down near him, though not close, pulling my feet up onto the bench in front of me and hugging my knees to my chest.

“When did you know you were attracted to men?” Brom asked me.

“What?”

“Not when you were growing into a woman and were told you would need to marry this man or the other,” he continued. “When were you first drawn to someone of the same sex or the opposite?”

I frowned slightly as I racked my brain, aware that Brom was asking the questions, not me, but I was willing to at least give him that.

“I was never attracted to other girls,” I replied. I knew that some were. “And boys…?” I frowned slightly as the memory came. “When I was fourteen, there was a stable lad with the most brilliant greenish blue eyes. He wasn’t special in any other way but for that. I met his gaze when he was saddling my horse for me and…”

It came back to me then, hard, that feeling. Like a bolt out of the blue, utterly alien and yet entirely instinctual. I’d stared, struck by the colour of the lad’s eyes, and had done so for long enough that some of his fellow stable lads snickered before an older man clipped them around the ear for their impertinence. I’d hauled myself into the saddle then without even a thank you, something Father took me to task for later, but… A strange feeling, like the way the air feels after a lightning strike, had filled my body for the entire ride afterwards. We’d trotted past fields and workers, cottages and the nearby stream, but I didn’t see any of it. Just him and his pretty eyes instead. I told Brom this and he nodded.

“And is it a man’s eyes that draws you closer?” Brom asked, a strange kind of brittle quality to his voice. “Is it for the way that we look at you that you decided to bind yourself to us?”

“No, though each of you have fine eyes in different ways,” I said, then I frowned. “But… this has little to do with you and Draven.”

“It has everything to do with me…” He shook his head then. “I can’t speak for Draven and I won’t for Ada, but…” When he sighed, I wanted to lean closer, to touch him and wipe the frown away, but I held myself apart. I was the one who was the cause of that frown or, rather, his failure to be open with me was the cause. “For men, it’s often some quality that draws them to a woman. A pretty face.” He spared me a much softer look then, something that had me snorting. “Breasts that spill out of her neckline, a well-rounded arse.”

“Well, it can’t be any of those things that drew you to me,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the stone bench.

“You’d be mistaken if you thought not one of us has watched the twitch of your hips, been captured by the shape of your breasts,” Brom said, “let alone your arse.”

“And Draven’s?” I asked, hating myself for asking, but unable to stop. It felt like if I just relented and crawled into his lap, he’d hold me close and kiss all my worries away, but I needed to know. Kay’s wariness, Ada’s claims, the way Bernard gazed at his butler, it all weighed so heavily on me.

When he responded, I thought for a moment that Brom wasn’t going to answer my question. Then I realised that he was, just in a more roundabout way. “But I’m different.” He looked out onto the scene beyond, and my eyes followed his gaze. The wonders of Dragon Home were out there, tugging at our attention, but they couldn’t compare with the feeling that struck me, that we were balanced on the cusp of him sharing something fundamental, something pivotal for our relationship, and that was what drew me back to him. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, before continuing. “I don’t have a type, not a physical one at least. It isn’t any particular quality that draws me closer to a person, or has me engaging in frantic little trysts in the ruins near my parents’ house.”

His focus shifted back to me.

“Nor will it have me nobly offering to marry the one woman that I and all my men are infatuated by. I’m not drawn to a particular type of girl or man. I feel next to nothing for potential partners, until I get to know the person themselves. It’s…whothey are that intrigues me, forces me closer, has my breath catching in my throat, making it hard to breathe, my words failing me as I want to tell them everything that burns inside me, but dare not.”

He turned to face me and put his hand on the bench between us so he could lean closer, though he stopped partway when I leaned my body away from him.

“I’ve never cared much if someone is a man or a woman, just whether or not they intrigued me. I was fascinated by the pig lad with the bearing of a nobleman when he came to bring beasts to feed my dragons. When that lad turned out to be the missing Lady Wentworth, my interest only increased. And when it became apparent she would need to find a husband among our number, the part of me that had been planning my courtship in my mind, since we’d left your estate, shoved itself to the fore, demanding I make a play for you.”

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